How Women’s Life Changes After Marriage Between Career And Household Chores

Marriage changes many things, and in India, it significantly reshapes a woman’s time schedule from day-break to night. A recent year-long Time Use Survey 2024 conducted from January-December 2024 by the National Statistical Office brought this into sharp focus through large-scale data analysis across rural and urban households.

The national survey involved a sample size 454,192 individuals aged 6 years and above, including 228576 male, 225565 female and transgender across 83247 rural and 56240 urban households in 5949 villages and 4020 urban clusters.

According to the findings, women women’s contribution to household work, which is unpaid and unnoticed far exceeds that of the men, and has a huge impact on their career and lifestyle. Marriage brings in additional responsibilities of the household, significantly reducing their time for employment and educational pursuits, the findings reveal.

Unpaid Work Becomes the Default

According to the survey, on average, a married woman in India spends about 236 minutes a day on unpaid domestic services, including on cooking, cleaning, and managing the home. By contrast, the time married men spend for the same task is a meagre 24 minutes. Incidentally, this stark gap is consistent across both rural and urban households.

Caregiving work is another task that takes a significant amount of their time. Married women spend 47 minutes daily looking after dependents, while married men spend 13 minutes on the same task.

Even in households where women are employed, this unpaid work doesn’t go away. It simply gets stacked alongside their jobs, what’s often described as the “double shift.” Paid work may have fixed hours and some holidays, but unpaid work at home tends to continue every day, without a break, the survey reveals.

Employment Hours Drop for Women

The shift in priorities after marriage is also reflected in employment numbers. While unmarried women spend a greater share of time on employment or learning activities, that time drops sharply after marriage. According to the survey, only 20.7 per cent of urban women and 25.0 per cent of rural women in the 15–59 age group are engaged in employment or related activities. For men, those numbers are much higher, 60.8 per cent in rural and 75.0 per cent in urban settings.

Even among those who are employed, the average time spent daily on paid work is lower for women, 344 minutes compared to 480 minutes for men in the 15–59 age group.

If Marriage Ends, the Load Eases

One surprising pattern the survey highlighted is what happens when marriage ends, through separation, divorce, or widowhood. The time spent on unpaid domestic work by women drops almost by half. For men, it rises slightly. This contrast quietly signals how the unpaid burden is tied closely to the presence of a woman in a household, and how the responsibility shifts only when there is no one else to do it.

The Kitchen Reflects the Gender Divide

Cooking and food preparation remain the most time-consuming domestic tasks. Women, especially married women, spend an average of 219 minutes a day on food-related activities. Men spend just 4 minutes on the same.

Other tasks involving child upbringing also show similar gaps. Married women spend around 66 minutes a day in such activities, while married men spend 19 minutes on average.

Time Is Not Shared Equally

When combining both paid and unpaid work, men and women end up spending similar total hours, about 7-8 hours a day. But how that time is split makes all the difference. Women carry the larger load of tasks that are unpaid, undervalued, and often invisible. These tasks don’t show up on payslips or resumes, but they keep households running.

This imbalance affects not just a woman’s income but also her choices. Limited time means limited flexibility for formal work or learning. And as domestic responsibilities remain largely with women, even small changes in family structure, such as childbirth or elder care, impact her more directly.

What the Numbers Say

236 minutes vs 24 minutes: Average time married women spend on unpaid household services per day vs time spend by married men spend on the same.

344 minutes vs. 480 minutes: Average time employed women vs. men spend daily on paid work

66 minutes vs. 19 minutes: Time spent on childcare and upbringing by women vs. men

219 minutes vs. 4 minutes: Time spent on food-related activities by women vs. men

A Bigger Question

Last year in March, Nidhi Sinha, editor, Outlook Money had penned a column, One Step At A Time which highlighted this very issue. She noted that women’s equality, indeed, has become a buzzword in modern times, but the real question is how much of it has translated into real life?

While striking a balance between personal and professional realms is a continuous task for both men and women, it is the latter who end up struggling most, at times sacrificing professional for the personal. The takeaway from the survey is not just about hours and minutes. It’s about what those hours mean, and who they belong to. As women marry, their time increasingly belongs to the household. If work is divided unequally at home, equality outside remains out of reach.